Those We Leave Behind
by yassandra
Summary: Two memorial services, very much the same, many years apart. Mac has been to both... Oneshot


A/N I'm not sure where this little piece came from - it's been rattling around in my head for a few days now. As the name Jason's father went by in our world has not been mentioned I've gone with Adam. I also read in an early promo for Atlantis that Jason is supposed to have been looking for his father for 20 years which would have made him very young when his Dad disappeared - so I've gone with that idea.

I own nothing

* * *

**1993**

Adam had been incredibly selfish, Mac decided. If he had had no ties in the world then taking a sub down in dangerous waters to view an archaeological site would have been a little more acceptable, as it would have been only his future he was risking. To take that sort of risk when you were the sole parent of a young child, however, was not acceptable in any way, shape or form. Not that Mac had thought that before the accident, of course. Then it had just been another site; another dive; another discovery. But then, he had not expected to be standing in a pew at his friend's memorial service, staring at an empty coffin. They hadn't recovered a body, and while Mac had dared to hope for a time that Adam might somehow miraculously have escaped the disappearance of his mini-sub, that hope had died rapidly in the following days.

Pressure on his right hand made him look down. The small child alongside him had slipped his hand inside Mac's wordlessly, never taking his dry eyes off his father's "coffin". How much the little boy actually understood about what was going on was anybody's guess. He certainly hadn't been seen to cry since they had told him that Daddy wouldn't be coming home, but neither had he asked for his father. Mac sighed. Jason had been well provided for under the terms of his father's will but nothing could alter the fact that the child had lost both his parents before his sixth birthday – and that would mark the boy. The friends who had been looking after him while his father was away at the dive site would become his guardians now – although Mac had heard that there was talk of sending the child away to school as soon as he was old enough. Mac sighed again. Yes, Adam had been very selfish indeed.

* * *

**2013**

Seeing the boy standing at the ship's railing, looking out over the turbulent waters with eyes as distant as the moon, Mac found his breath catching in his throat. Everything about the lad reminded Mac of his father at that moment; from his posture, to the way his dark curls blew in the wind. For a second it was as if Adam was standing there as he used to, lost in dreams of far off civilisations. The boy was hardly a boy any more, he sternly reminded himself. Twenty years had seen him grow into a strong and handsome young man, but Mac couldn't look at him without thinking of the five year old who had slipped his hand inside _his_ at Adam's memorial service. What the boy was planning to do gave Mac a sick feeling, and once again he cursed his old friend's selfishness, knowing that it was what had led his son to this point. He made his way over to the railing only half knowing what he planned to say

"You look just like him." The lad half turned towards him, startled out of his reverie. "Your Dad. He'd stand there, just staring at the ocean" Mac smiled weakly. "I don't suppose there's any way I can talk you out of going down there?"

"You could try, but you'd be wasting your time," Jason responded, his face set with determination. He smiled briefly at Mac before turning back to look at the ocean once again.

"Even if you locate the wreckage of his sub, what then?"

"I have to know what happened to him." The undercurrent of sadness was present in the young man's voice even if it was hidden by years of practice.

"Do you think your Dad would have wanted you to risk your life?" The older man asked.

"When he took the sub down... he knew he wasn't coming back." Jason turned back towards his father's old friend. Mac felt his breath catching again as he saw the sorrow now plainly written in the young man's eyes. The boy fingered a necklace that he held in his hands. "He gave it to me before he left. He told me that one day I'd understand," he paused. "I need to know."

Mac nodded, suddenly feeling unable to deny this boy the answers he craved. "I hope you find it," he said, clasping the boy on the shoulder. "Whatever it is you're looking for."

* * *

The memorial service was more crowded than Mac had expected, although there seemed to be remarkably few people of Jason's own age there. Perhaps that was not so surprising, though, as Mac had understood that the boy had had very few friends of his own age; his single minded search for his father had not exactly been conducive to making new friends. He sighed. This was where Adam's selfishness had ultimately led them all.

Looking around the room, he found himself cynically wondering just how many of the "mourners" were actually reporters. There had been something of a media frenzy since Jason had disappeared – the fact that his disappearance mirrored that of his father so perfectly had been a gift to the journalists. Their descriptions of both father and son and the events surrounding their disappearances had been lurid to say the least; the general consensus amongst the British press was that Jason had been some kind of little boy lost, desperately seeking love and parental approval who had embarked on a course of self-destruction. The problem was, Mac thought, that while their conclusions were a little wild and their psychoanalysis and character assessments somewhat incorrect, they weren't wholly wrong either.

He sighed and clenched his fists, trying to avoid the phantom feeling of the small hand in his own that kept tugging at his consciousness.

* * *

It wasn't until the boat was nearly at the site that Mac realised he had been aiming to come here at all. It had been an easy decision to make really - a job nearby, a quick detour and here he was. He stood at the railings looking out over the turbulent water, thinking of the last time he had stood here and could almost see the young man beside him in his minds eye. He looked down at the coin in his hand. It had been given to him by Adam, what sometimes felt like a lifetime ago, when they had finished their first site together. Adam had said it had come from a dive site he had worked on before, although it had looked so new and unblemished that Mac had been unsure of whether to believe his assertion that it was a genuine antiquity. He half smiled. Jason would have been a baby then and Mac could clearly remember the pride in Adam's voice when he talked about his son. With one swift movement he held his hand out over the water and, opening his fingers wide, let the coin slip down into the waters below.

"I hope you found what you were looking for," he said.


End file.
